Trackmania UnitedReview

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Crazily addictive, Trackmania United probes the very depths of vehicular and driver abuse

By Gord Goble

Take the wildest Hot Wheels course ever built, multiply the insanity level by about a gazillion, and toss in a heaping helping of some of the most twisted vehicular booby traps ever conceived. Add a few thousand more courses just like it&#Array;dozens of which you've constructed yourself&#Array;and top it off with a ridiculously active online community just ready to toast your best scores, and you have a recipe for mania---Trackmania, that is.

Trackmania United is the most recent in a series of Trackmania games developed by French design studio Nadeo. It's a culmination of sorts, merging the environments from the original Trackmania (2003), 2005's Trackmania Sunrise, and 2006's Trackmania Nations, and incorporating multiplayer/online enhancements and visual perks. Indeed, if you haven't before taken the plunge, and even if you have, this is the version you want merely by virtue of its size and scope.

But what is it?

By simple definition, Trackmania United is an arcade racer. But it's so much more.

Hugely popular in Europe where it's been lionized as one of the greatest driving games in recent memory, but only recently gaining a strong following in North America, the Trackmania series has always emphasized, for want of a better description, lunacy. Like 1991's benchmark arcade driving game Stunts, it demands that you drive you car through all manner of condition and contraption on your way to the checkered flag. But there's one important distinction from the ancient Stunts&#Array;these stunts are really out there.

Sure, it delivers standard loop the loops and jumps, but it's the size and magnitude and difficulty of each that really hits home. Air time is a huge factor in this game, and the physical sensation of hurtling over some of the game's more gargantuan chasms and screaming over sinewy ribbons of track elevated hundreds of feet in the air really sticks with you afterwards. To say your stomach does the same somersaults it does when you hop aboard that monster roller coaster down at the county fair is not overstating things.

And that's just the beginning. Imagine hitting the crest of a hill with absolutely zero visibility ahead, when out of nowhere you're expected to jump a Grand Canyon-size chasm, spin sideways through a couple of floating hoops, and land on a microscopic piece of track that isn't even lined up with the one you've left behind. Even worse, there's a massive pothole square in the middle of that landing pad threatening to drop you a couple hundred feet to the cold, hard ground below. Adding to your misery, there's a power boosting strip right in front of you that'll instantly slingshot you straight forward like Evil Knieval's rocket car, first into thin air and then splattering you into the side of a sheer cliff face, a la Wily E Coyote. The thought alone is enough to make a grown man wail like a little baby.

But not all the tracks ask you to defy the accepted laws of gravity. Indeed, the game offers up seven different global environments and seven different classes of automobile&#Array;one for each environment. Sometimes, the courses involve straight-up speed, and ungodly amounts of it. Sometimes you'll find yourself on a snow bank or in the middle of thick, desert sand, struggling just to keep your car or truck from bogging down in the muck or flipping onto its roof. The variety is tremendous, and the excitement level is almost always high.

As for vehicle physics, let's just say Trackmania United won't contend for simulation of the year. Though its SUVs and trucks feel admirably distinct from its coupes, which in turn feel far less nimble and much slower than its open-wheeled Indy-style racecars, there's none of the subtle handling characteristics or inherent difficulty of a sim.

Generally, the vehicles respond quickly to your input and neither oversteer nor understeer. They drift through turns, and they are controllable whilst in the air. In short, they're a heck of a lot of fun, and just about anyone can drive at least moderately proficiently within a few minutes. And in a game like this, where the challenge lies elsewhere, you wouldn't want it any other way.

Hardcore realists should also note the game doesn't feature authentic perks such as a setup garage or upgrade shop. Truth is that each of the vehicles within each of the classes are identical&#Array;save for their paint jobs, which can be customized quite brilliantly at any time&#Array;and aren't available for mechanical modifications of any sort. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, because the onus is placed squarely on the driver to pull every extra ounce of speed out of his car. Maybe Bernie Ecclestone and his mega-buck Formula 1 concept&#Array;where long, drawn-out processions are the rule&#Array;should pay attention.

Moreover, the "no mod" rule really affects the online experience. Unlike the online component of most other racing games, where you inevitably face drivers who've set up or modded or cheat-ified their cars so spectacularly that you have no earthly chance of winning, Trackmania United is certainly a more equitable proposition.